NY Mets report card grades for the first month of the season

Franklyn Kilome

Kilome experienced his first taste of the majors this year and has done an admirable job. He’s been up twice to eat innings and did it well. He’s shown good stuff and has nine strikeouts in seven innings. The big issue is control, but that is often an issue with young arms. He looks to be a solid arm for the Mets in the future, and might get more chances in long relief this year. He even got his first major league save last week in Miami.

Grade: C+

Pete Alonso

It’s been a disappointing sophomore season thus far for the Polar Bear. Alonso has a .247/.375/.441 slash line with just five home runs and 13 RBI. He was struggling so much to the point where he is now batting sixth regularly in the Mets lineup. He’s been chasing pitches and has 31 strikeouts in 93 at-bats which means he’s striking out once in every three at-bats. That’s just unacceptable. Lately, Pete has turned it around a bit and has looked better at the plate. Hopefully, he can continue to improve and get back to being that force in the middle of the Mets lineup that he was last year.

Grade: C

Rick Porcello

Porcello’s Mets career could not have started off worse. He allowed 11 runs in his first six innings as a Met. Since then, he’s pitched pretty well. The Mets have been using a defensive lineup when he pitches and that’s helped since he allows a lot of balls to be put in play. However, it costs the Mets on the offensive side of the ball as they’ve scored just six runs in the three starts they’ve used that lineup. He has struggled against the high-powered Phillies and Braves lineup, but pitched well against the Nationals lineup that is towards the bottom of the National League in runs per game. Those starts against the Nationals have saved his season.

Grade: C-

Jeurys Familia

Familia is nowhere near the pitcher he was back in 2015 and 2016. That is clear. After returning to the Mets last year, he had an awful 2019 season. So far this year, he’s been a little better. The control issues are still very much there as he’s walked eight batters in 11.1 innings. Familia hasn’t pitched in many high leverage spots this year but that might change with Lugo’s move to the rotation. Hopefully he can improve on his control issues but that doesn’t appear likely.

Grade: C-

Dellin Betances

I’ve been disappointed with how Betances has performed in his first season in Queens. The stuff just doesn’t look the same as it was years ago with the Yankees. He had one dominant outing in which he struck out the side but if you take that outing out of the equation, he’s only struck out four batters in eight innings. In his career, he has struck out a whopping 14.5 batters per nine innings. He’s only hitting 94-95 miles per hour on his fastball and just isn’t the same guy. The results haven’t been too bad, he’s allowed all six of his runs in two outings. I feel like in both of those outings you could tell he didn’t have control of the strike zone yet Luis Rojas just left him out there anyway. Walks are always an issue with Betances and they have been this year as well as he’s walked five batters in his nine innings of work but he usually offsets that by striking out a ton of guys. Hopefully, he can regain his dominant form and be the reliable set up guy the Mets need him to be.

Grade: C-

Walker Lockett

Lockett made one start in place of an injured Jacob deGrom and took the loss. He wasn’t horrible, allowing five runs in six innings, three of them on one swing of the bat of J.T. Realmuto. At least he gave the Mets a bit of length. If all goes well, Lockett won’t see many more appearances this year and in the future.

Grade: C-